The point being made in terms of overall consolidation resulting in even less competition is not complicated.

It's not less competition. For example there are ZERO areas where Charter and Cox compete for customers. And if a merger happens it make sense for these 2 to do it than have Time Warner involved. Cox is privately owned and would not need to ask shareholder permission or accpetance to get bought out or merge with Charter.

Nobody is saying cable operators compete with each other. But AT&T and Verizon's exit from DSL and the further consolidation of cable operators does mean even less competition and higher rates. Anyone arguing otherwise, or denying the problems inherent in just three or four major companies controlling a nationwide market is smoking some very lovely ISP industry employee reefer.

Nobody is saying cable operators compete with each other. But AT&T and Verizon's exit from DSL and the further consolidation of cable operators does mean even less competition and higher rates. Anyone arguing otherwise, or denying the problems inherent in just three or four major companies controlling a nationwide market is smoking some very lovely ISP industry employee reefer.

Once again how would a Cox, Charter merger effect competition? At&t and Verizon are going to do what they do regardless. You're not making much sense. Also and maybe just a coincidence but in most Charter areas the main telco is at&T and same thing goes with Cox. So really this would have zero effect on Verizon either way.

On the TV side a Charter/Cox merger would still be much smaller than Comcast, TW, DirecTv and Dish Network. And be less of an issue for approval than say a Charter/TW merger.

There's about a thousand studies out there highlighting how market consolidation, and/or the reduction in number of overall market gatekeepers reduces competition and harms consumers -- regardless of whether or not Comcast competes with Cox directly.

True. There is very little over-building in cable areas. Except for WOW and where FIOS TV is available, there is little to no competition at the street level for cable companies.--A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury.

There's about a thousand studies out there highlighting how market consolidation, and/or the reduction in number of overall market gatekeepers reduces competition and harms consumers -- regardless of whether or not Comcast competes with Cox directly.

Read one.

Maybe I'm obtuse too, because I think you're missing it. Their footprints don't overlap. If I'm in a Charter market, my choices for broadband suppliers doesn't go down because of this merger. They stay exactly the same. If they competed in the same market you would have a point. But they don't. You're not reducing providers in any market if this merger were to happen.

There's about a thousand studies out there highlighting how market consolidation, and/or the reduction in number of overall market gatekeepers reduces competition and harms consumers -- regardless of whether or not Comcast competes with Cox directly.

Read one.

Maybe I'm obtuse too, because I think you're missing it. Their footprints don't overlap. If I'm in a Charter market, my choices for broadband suppliers doesn't go down because of this merger. They stay exactly the same. If they competed in the same market you would have a point. But they don't. You're not reducing providers in any market if this merger were to happen.

I agree with you, but you are missing his point - that being big alone is bad all by itself. It is all part of the philosophy some have that big corporations are all evil and that bigger is more evil.--A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury.

While I agree they don't directly over lap coverage areas, I seem to remember that each municipality has a specific contract with a particular Cable operator. Periodically those contracts come up for renewal, so in the case of a Cable merger the Townships now have less choices for their particular town. That being said I don't think I have ever heard of a town kicking the incumbent provider out.

I'm saying there's an ocean of data showing that consolidation, even if companies don't directly compete, has a direct impact on overall competition, opinion diversity, service quality, customer support. When you combine cable consolidation with Verizon and AT&T's decision to hang up on tens of millions of customers, you run into massive issues. When you consolidate mindlessly customer support always suffers.

I'm glad some of you think that's something people should be cheering about.

We'll see how glib and obtuse some of you are when your only choice is Cox. I swear to god, people on this website love cheerleading against their own best interests.

Your math is inaccurate. As a basic example, take a municipality that has AT&T and Charter as the comfortable duopoly. Then, let Charter be acquired by Cox. Now the comfortable duopoly in that municipality is AT&T and Cox. How did the competitive landscape in the municipality change by an MSO being acquired by another?

Charter merges with Cox and Time Warner Cable, creating a national geographical monopoly, no longer feebly checked by a telco competitor that's so powerful, it enjoys regulator capture and elbowing out any future competitors.

I'm saying there's an ocean of data showing that consolidation, even if companies don't directly compete, has a direct impact on overall competition, opinion diversity, service quality, customer support. When you combine cable consolidation with Verizon and AT&T's decision to hang up on tens of millions of customers, you run into massive issues. When you consolidate mindlessly customer support always suffers.

I'm glad some of you think that's something people should be cheering about.

We'll see how glib and obtuse some of you are when your only choice is Cox. I swear to god, people on this website love cheerleading against their own best interests.

Do I have choice between Charter and Cox now? Nope. Just Charter. A merger between them does not effect this one iota.

Using your logic if say you took Comcast, TWC, Cox, Charter and broke them up into say 25 small regional companies but none of them competed with each other just like they don't now, then your logic says this would be good for customers and result in better service and lower prices. I beg to differ.

This isn't like if DirecTv and DishNetwork were to merge. Then you are reducing competition. Also a combined Charter/Cox would still be half the size of Time Warner Cable and 1/3 the size of Comcast.

Charter and Cox would never be in contention for any towns services. Cable companies like to be somewhat regional so they a aren't just go in to one town where they have no other service for hundreds of miles. The nearest Cox area to me is 400 miles away. So Cox would never come here. Now Comcast would because they are in the next county 10 miles away.

All that being say Charter has been here for over a dozen year. before that we had Time Warner for just 2 years before they thought us to unworthy they sold us off to Charter. So I find ironic if they were to merge with Charter and have us again after dumping us.

Charter merges with Cox and Time Warner Cable, creating a national geographical monopoly, no longer feebly checked by a telco competitor that's so powerful, it enjoys regulator capture and elbowing out any future competitors.

There's about a thousand studies out there highlighting how market consolidation, and/or the reduction in number of overall market gatekeepers reduces competition and harms consumers -- regardless of whether or not Comcast competes with Cox directly.

Read one.

Maybe I'm obtuse too, because I think you're missing it. Their footprints don't overlap. If I'm in a Charter market, my choices for broadband suppliers doesn't go down because of this merger. They stay exactly the same. If they competed in the same market you would have a point. But they don't. You're not reducing providers in any market if this merger were to happen.

I agree with you, but you are missing his point - that being big alone is bad all by itself. It is all part of the philosophy some have that big corporations are all evil and that bigger is more evil.

I guess I would counter this with - how does this create only 1 company to handle broadband? This isn't exactly like DirecTV merging with Dish, which was attempted back in, IIRC, 2005. There are a number of broadband providers out there. Granted, there aren't a whole lot in any one area, but that's true whether Charter gets bought or not.

Competition only brings down prices if the consumer has a choice. Gas stations in the middle of nowhere can charge you whatever the hell they want. Gas stations that are located on opposing corners, however, tend to be really aggressive with their pricing. Same thing here.

While I agree they don't directly over lap coverage areas, I seem to remember that each municipality has a specific contract with a particular Cable operator. Periodically those contracts come up for renewal, so in the case of a Cable merger the Townships now have less choices for their particular town. That being said I don't think I have ever heard of a town kicking the incumbent provider out.

No... this isn't correct at all. A number of years ago, our market was served by a small cable outfit called Suburban Cable. They were the only cable operator in the region because they had the franchise agreement. What happened to Suburban? They got bought out by Comcast. How many cable operators did we have before the buy-out? One. How many did we have AFTER the buy-out? One. You're just changing hands... that's all. Now that doesn't mean that you won't hate the new owners of the cable system in your area. You may. But it does nothing to decrease or increase competition.

Now you can argue that if a town wants to go fishing for a new cable company that this move makes it more difficult. And that would be true, to a point. The point being that I can't think of a single case where that's happened. I'm sure it does, but in this age of TV competition, it's far more likely that a town just opens up their franchising agreements to allow others in.

The point he was making is, if you have 100 company's provide cable service and all trying to expand then you will have more markets that do overlap and more competition.If 50 of the company's are bought out by the others, there is 50% less chance of more competition or overlap in more markets.